


tongue tied (and twisted)

by secretsarenotforfree



Category: One Tree Hill
Genre: F/M, Multi Pairing, Other, but it's here and it's happening now okay ljlkgsg, that literally no one on this planet asked for, the college coffee shop au, who's lucas never seen him before in my life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25607794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree
Summary: A song by Jack’s Mannequin manages to kick in over the speakers before he responds, his tone suggesting that he’s not just talking about the coffee. “A little sweet. Hot, preferably. Definitely foam.”
Relationships: Clay Evans/Quinn James, Haley James Scott/Nathan Scott, Jake Jagielski/Peyton Sawyer, Julian Baker/Brooke Davis, Junk Moretti/Ferguson "Fergie" Thompson, Karen Roe/Keith Scott
Comments: 10
Kudos: 13





	1. roast (dark)

**Author's Note:**

> once again, something that was supposed to be a long shot that turned into this Massive Thing that's going to have a few chapters. should i be putting this much effort into a fandom basically deceased on here, perhaps not, but my muse for them currently knows no bounds. so take this offering!! and i hope at least enjoy. rating might change, because in this they're all 19/20, and my imagination rests soley in the gutter.
> 
> no one cares about this but me, but picture basically everyone with their season three hair. specifically for nate, the earlier part before he cut his hair. peytons the only exception, hers is more season four/five. 
> 
> title from 'baby i' by ariana grande but i mean. it's a common phrase.

Cold air conditioning, the smell of fresh coffee grounds, and mid 2000’s alternative music are not usually things that people learn to block out, but you had to give Haley James a pass. This, after all, had been the soundtrack of her life for the past three years.

The story of how she’d gotten here was patchy and full of lucky (and unlucky moments), but here she was. Trying her best to not take Professor Kelly’s less than stellar reviews of her latest set of lyrics to heart, and wishing that the thermostat wasn’t permanently stuck at 69 degrees, something that naturally colder-running her had always hated. (She didn’t have her poncho hanging in her locker with an extra name tag just for funzies, that was for sure.)

“This is _the most_ boring shift of all time. This is why I hate picking up midweeks.” Brooke, one of Haley’s best friends and the person she was lucky enough to be sharing this shift with today, rips off another piece of her chocolate croissant and munches on it moodily, swinging heeled feet. They try not to get caught sitting on the back counters whenever Karen was scheduled to come in, but that didn’t mean if Brooke wasn’t behind the register, she was perched on the black and white shot marble.

Technically, they were co-founders too.

"What time is it anyway?"

“It’s only,” Haley checks her watch, slim and silver on her wrist. “Ten o’clock? But it is a _Wednesday_ so. I don’t know.” She sighs. “Toss me a piece of croissant?”

Brooke sticks out her tongue at her, nose wrinkling in a way Haley had seen millions of times before. “Get your own, coffee girl.” 

Haley huffs under her breath. “Technically, you’re a coffee girl too. And Peyton. And Bevin, and Rachel, and Fergie when that’s the pronoun they're using that day, and -” Her spiel is interrupted by a piece of said pastry nailing her between the eyes, but she still manages to snag it before it drops to the ground, rolling her eyes at Brooke’s responding laugh. Normally, there are more than two baristas on shift, but Wednesdays are notoriously slow. It’s just the two of them and Keith, their resident pastry chef (Karen’s husband, and the only man she’d ever met who could make a bandana look dad-like and badass at the same time) in the back. 

_Caffeine Over Bro’s_ was Haley, Brooke, and Peyton’s brainchild, but only came to life with Karen Roe’s funding, underwriting, and belief in them.

A short explanation involves a home economics assignment and a teachers recommendation, but for a longer one you had to start at the beginning. The beginning, being the day that Haley James, Brooke Davis, and Peyton Sawyer, three eight years who’d barely spoken, had gotten a carpool ride home from a school field trip by Haley’s mom. Though the particulars of whatever conversation the three had had in the back row of the minivan had been lost to time and the worn carpeted seats, something had fallen into place between the three of them, even if on paper it didn’t make much sense.

Brooke Davis was stunning and driven, sassy and secretly insecure in a side she barely only ever showed her best girls. Peyton Sawyer was moody and complicated, fiercely loyal and a staunch supporter of the color black. Haley James was more shy by a mile than either, with perfect comedic timing and a songbird voice only her best friends had heard. Where one lacked, another supported and filled in the cracks, and they refused to be separated. It wasn’t just any friendship that could survive a freshman and sophomore year of high school without their boldest Musketeer, Brooke being stolen away to New York by jet setting parents, but Haley and Peyton made it work. Their parents had the astronomical texting bills to prove it.

Thank God, Ellie, Peyton's aunt and rough and tumble record store owner with a heart of gold, had talked Brooke's parents into letting her have the last two years of high school in her home under Ellie's supervision. Haley doesn't know what she would've done junior and senior year, the only ones without her crazy sister Taylor's presence giving her an impossible standard to live up to, without being able to look next to her and see Brooke and Peyton. 

(Technically, Haley has two sisters, but she really feels like she has four.)

Tree Hill airport has seen some truly standout reunions, but nothing quite rivalled the excited screaming of a brunette barreling into the arms of her over-the-moon best friends in a tangle of Armani carry-ons and happy squeals. Since then, the three had been near inseparable.

It was junior year that changed the girls lives. What was supposed to be the capstone project of their eleventh grade home ec class, a business proposal, the three girls had gotten way too into. After some special Brooke Davis Brand Wheedling, Haley, Brooke and Peyton had gotten to work on it together, and drew up the plans for a local coffee shop. The two coffee shops that had been there all their lives were on opposite sides of town and at grossly different levels of taste, so there was definitely a need. With Brooke’s tasteful vision, even at seventeen, Peyton’s extensive coffee and music knowledge, and Haley’s head for business, it was remarkably professional. Even if Brooke chose a not so readable font, and Peyton went a smidgen overboard on the soundtrack of their powerpoint reputation.

They never expected it to get farther than the A+ Mr. Whitey had given them, so color them surprised when one of Haley’s friends mom’s had reached out to her. “I heard something about a coffee shop?” Karen had asked, sitting at Haley’s kitchen countertop like such things were normal, and fast forward four years later, and here they were.

They’d raised money with Karen’s help for most of senior year to get a monetary stake in it of their own, and were included in all the decisions. Karen had final say, of course, occasionally stepping in and giving them a strict budget, but a month before their freshman year of college started, _Caffeine Over Bro’s_ was open for business and the three girls were remarkably more accomplished than most of the undergraduate class of CW University.

(Lucas, Karen’s son, had helped a bit in those early days, but that had stopped for a number of reasons, one of which was his shockingly shoddy treatment of a crooked love triangle between him and two of the co-founders. He was one of Haley’s oldest friends, and always would be, but any closeness between them had been swiftly eroded by his treatment of Brooke and inability to take responsibility for how he’d crushed her heart and stomped on it for good measure even now, two years later. Every time he came in the shop Haley had a flashback of how she had held Brooke while she cried, haunting even now, and she just can’t make herself see him the way she used to. Brooke and Peyton’s relationship could survive a mistaken kiss. Haley and Lucas’s couldn’t.

She’s happy that he went to college in New York, far away from here. She hears his girlfriend Lindsay’s nice.)

It sort of sucked that all of three of them worked there too, but it was part of the deal they made with their parents to be able to go in on the venture with Karen at the ripe age of sixteen. They got to choose their own hours for the most part, and make their schedules so it could’ve been much worse. Their tips were pocket change compared to what they got from the business at large, but. Every little bit counted. Especially to Haley, whose family had always been just above that bottom line. Initially, Haley’s parents had refused to take a penny from her, but after a very thorough discussion half of it went to the families bank account, and the other half to Haley’s own. It was because of that money and that money only that she could afford the rent in the three bedroom she, Brooke, and Peyton had shared since freshman year. 

Either way, Karen sat in on every new hire they interviewed, and if they said someone had to go, they did. 

Tree Hill had always been a college town, at the end of the day, and they’d chosen a storefront a mere ten minute walk from campus. Wrought iron and curling white letters announced the name to anyone strolling past, glass topped tables and plush red cushioned chairs spread out on their patio under the fairy light strewn scaffolding in the same metal. After you pushed open the glass door, you were greeted with even more white walls and booths nestled against the sides of the coffee shop. Each booth was swathed in the same crimson fabric as the chairs outside, punctuated with wooden tables stained white. Bubble glass should’ve gone out of style years ago, but somehow it worked with the purple neon words adorning the walls telling customers to “relax” and “rejuvenate”, words directly from Brooke’s mouth. Every song that poured from the strategically placed speakers was hand picked by Peyton herself, and no one but Haley was allowed to write on the gigantic chalkboard that hung below the more formally typed menu, her looping script proclaiming the current specials and punctuate with tiny self effacing drawings penned by Peyton. If it had been Haley herself, she wouldn’t have chosen periwinkle purple for the aprons, or white words on black background for the nametags, but she had to admit that it all kind of...worked together.

And so, the shop had flourished, from opening day to now.

Most of these details had faded to the background after three years of spending most of her days off here, trying to help her parents with the financial burden of having raised three wildly different daughters and to save for her own self after college, but Haley still loved _CoB_. 

Though maybe, not now. When a customer hadn’t given her something to do for the past hour and she was bored out of her skull. She briefly contemplates taking out her phone to get started on that essay due for History 309 the next day, but ultimately keeps her position. Elbows on the front counter, framed by register number one and the glass pastry case, while she made a very complicated tower out of creamers and daydreamed about having something to _do,_ goddammit.

There’s a little vibrating noise, something near hard to hear over the low fi guitar strums of _The Cure_ , but Brooke’s harrumph of displeasure made it stand out.

“Who is it?” Haley calls behind her, not particularly motivated to turn around.

“Owen.” On its own the name ‘Owen’ doesn’t seem very distasteful, but the way Brooke says it definitely gives it that connotation. They’ve been a will-they-won’t-they for a month or so now, ever since Brooke first saw him doing ridiculous beer pong tricks at the frat party Haley had begged out of going, but he’s played hard to get a little too hard. Haley is sure she’ll be overhearing (or, ranted at later) a very thorough Brooke DavisTM dressing down coming his way very soon. 

Her best friend hops down from the counter and flicks the end of long near brown black bangs out of hazel eyes, thumbs furiously pressing on the glass screen of her phone. Another outraged noise, and Brooke tugs on one of Haley’s belt loops loosely. “I’m gonna go call him back. You good out here?”

“What _ever_ shall I do without you?” Haley spins fully around to face her friend, her loose near strawberry blonde hair whirling with her, and places the back of her hand on her head in mock despair. “With all these customers and all, I shall simply drown under the work.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” It’s distracted, and the snarkiness fades out as Brooke swings impertinent hips to the backroom. 

Without Brooke, Haley just feels even more stagnant, so she dismantles the tiny artificial tower, slides her arms down the cool marble and hopes for something to happen. A murder, maybe. Someone needing CPR so she could finally use her babysitting training for the first time since she graduated. Or even a _book_ , a new one because it has truly been too long since she refreshed the contents of the black shelves lining the hallway to the bathrooms -

“Okay, so I think I’m going to need your help with this.”

A customer. A customer? She knows it’s shitty work etiquette, but the voice hasn’t quite made it to her yet, and she can’t see anything from where she’s slumped. “Help with what?” Haley calls, scratching a nail idly at an imperfection on the counter.

“Ordering something. I don’t have a lot of experience with coffee. I usually use other pleasures to wake up.”

Gross. Her nose wrinkles, because okay, maybe at almost twenty (damn her birthday placement, Brooke and Peyton always teased her for being the baby) she’s still kind of a prude. And a virgin, which Haley only uses during Never Have I Ever to win as a desperate move. The voice is closer now, distinctly male and pleasingly deep, if she noticed things like that. 

(She did. It was the musician in her, that latched onto certain inflections and dips in tone and hooked them back for storage, in case a song could profit from it. This was a male voice, deep and amused in the sort of way that it rolled from her throat to her stomach almost as if it was her voice instead.)

The voice finally comes to a stop in front of her, so Haley rustles up some motivation and pushes upwards with a great sigh that she chokes on the moment she’s up to her modest height and her gaze has to keep climbing.

The voice was _hot_.

Hot, like thinking there’s another step going through that terrible whoosh of putting your foot down to oblivion. Hot, like stunning blue eyes so warm and yet on the pools edge of silver, a contrast to raven dark, thick looking hair. Hot, like, why on earth was she stuck on the yellow piping shot through the collar of his leather jacket when it was hanging on such nicely formed shoulders.

(He grins at her, devilish and easy, and she nearly sends up a prayer in thanks that whatever made him had held back the barest bit before it quite made it to dimple. Lord help the rest of the world if he’d gotten the rest of that indent with that killer smile. Haley would know, Brooke flashed hers and acres of men fell.)

She finishes the rest of what she painfully knows is a very unattractive hacking cough and doesn’t have to exert a bit of effort to bring out one of her best smiles, stretching on her tiptoes on impulse to see if he’s just as tall as Haley thinks he is. (He is. Her inner self swoons.)

“So uh.” She swipes back a long piece of hair, anxiously pulling off her scrunchie to throw her hair in a bun to keep her hands busy and less nervous. “What did you need help with, again?”

He laughs, and indicates a long arm at the board. Haley can’t help herself from watching it, pointlessly engrossed in what that arm was doing. “Coffee. I only have experience with black coffee, and the too sweet, four creamer three caramel bullshit that my roommate orders. So I’d appreciate some help.”

“You came to a coffee shop without knowing anything about coffee?” Haley tugs at the perfectly tied bow behind her, knowing Brooke was going to fuss and fix it later. “Doesn’t seem very well thought out.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but if it weren’t for people like _me_ , people like _you_ would be out of a job.”

Haley frowns. “People like me?”

“Coffee people.” He gestures to her, squints those painful blue eyes. “Haley.”

Damn. He knows her name now. Belatedly, she wished she’d switched out her real name tag for the fake she used when she just wasn’t feeling it. That particular joke was an idea born out of a two AM wine circle that had them dying laughing at the mere thought. ‘Joy’, ‘Sophia’, and ‘Hilarie’ were far from model employees.

“Coffee people.” She repeats slowly, narrowing eyes at him a little bit, leaning on the counter and cocking her head at him. “You mean baristas?”

“Sure. So. You going to help?” He widens his eyes, and does that head thing people do when they’re expecting something, though its edge is softened by lips that clearly want to smile. 

(Soft, nice looking lips.)

“Are you.” Haley corrects, but swallows her rising ire and tucks a strand that had escaped from the bun behind her ear. “Yes. What kind of stuff do you like.”

“Stuff?”

“Sweet, salty, cold, hot,” Haley lists, folding her arms. “Do you need a pick-me-up? Foam or no foam? What do you want your coffee to do for you?”

He adjusts his stance, hands shoved deep in dark jean pockets, and she tries her hardest not to notice how well his thighs fit said jeans. Or that the black converses she can just see over the edge of the counter if Haley tilts her head the right way wasn’t a look she was expecting. A song by Jack’s Mannequin manages to kick in over the speakers before he responds, his tone suggesting that he’s not just talking about the coffee. “A little sweet. Hot, preferably. Definitely foam.”

“Okay.” That, Haley could work with. She re-do’s the bun to Making A Drink standards and strives to not get stuck on the potent combination of this guy and _foam_ , moving to the workstation. “What size do you want? And are you more of a vanilla and chocolate person?” She wants to guess chocolate, but best not to assume.

“Chocolate.” There’s a moment of silence, followed by a surprised chuckle that makes something inside Haley want to start jumping up and down, her eyes flicking back at him. “Are these sizes for real?”

Oh yeah. That. She was kind of desensitized to it at this point, but the fact still remained that the sizes weren’t listed as normal. Their large was called The Peyton, taller than the other two by a good couple inches, medium The Brooke, and small The Haley. It’s just a bit bullshit because there’s barely a hairsbreadth of difference between her height and Brooke’s but people tended to think it was fun if they took the time to look at the little labels under the display cups. 

(Most didn’t, which suited Haley just fine. Especially since the joke only worked when one of them was on shift.)

“Just _choose_ one.”

“Alright, alright fine.” He winks at her and Haley is suddenly, deeply betrayed by the butterflies that appear unasked for in the stomach. “The Haley.”

“You look more like a Peyton person, with all that _all_ of you, but suit yourself.” Her hands are already moving, the drink forming in her mind. Dark roast for sure, enough foam to give you a frothy mustache and a splash of milk for interest. A generous latticework of chocolate syrup, and no whipped cream. Haley got the feeling it would’ve been too much. “If you chicken out, I can always make you a green tea." She flashes over her shoulder while the coffee machine is going with a too cheesy smile.

His gaze snaps up to meet hers, making no effort to hide the fact that he’d been looking at her ass. “I think I’m good. You know, it occurs to me that I should have asked you how much this was going to cost before I gave you free rein.”

“If I was Rachel, you’d have a Peyton-sized frappe-mocha vanilla caramel Frankenstein with six expresso shots just so she can try to set a new single drink price record.” She knows that he’s following her down the line of the workstation from the other side of the glass counter and decides not to read into it. And to pretend like that blue as the smoky sky gaze wasn’t burning into her back and ass in equal measures. “But, since you’re lucky and have me instead - plus, you ordered our smallest size - you can pay if you like it. But only if you like it.”

“Wow, I really have lucked out. Coffee people everywhere should try to be more like you.”

Trying to convince herself that the mirth in his tone, layered with that earthy voice, isn’t charming, goes a lot less well than his order does. The moments of silence tick by, one, two, as Haley finishes, but it’s not awkward like it usually is with customers impatiently needing their fix at all hours of the day or night. It gives her the space to squeeze in one thought, like what the hell happened to Brooke and Owen’s ear should be scorched and well blistered by now - before she is squeezing the chocolate bottle generously in a swirl over the thick foam. Haley pushes the top on securely, and almost hands it to him before pulling back abruptly. 

His eyebrow raises, hand still hanging in the air between them at the opposite end of the counter from where this started. “Did you forget something?”

“I need a name.” Haley blinks at him, expectant as she plucks the white sharpie from the only pocket on the aggressively lavender apron, hovering the tip over the black of the cup. “For the order.”

He evaluates her for a moment with a playful kink in his eyebrows. “Are you holding my first real cup of cino-something hostage until you get a name to purposely misspell in front of me? That’s what I hear _baristas_ do.”

“Do we look like Starbucks to you? You’re not insulting me out of this. Name.”

“I don’t think this is an example of good customer service.”

“ _Name._ ”

“Is there a survey I can fill out or something?”

Haley levels him with a look, palms heating with every moment that passes. “Hurry up, before it’s not piping hot anymore and all my hard work is ruined.”

“Fine.” He leans forward a bit, as if so he can see what she writes. Instinctively, Haley curls the hot cup closer to her and resists the urge to stick her tongue out at him. “It’s Nathan. Nate.”

_Nathan._

“Was that so hard?” 

The urge to use three n’s instead of two, and to add a vowel where it absolutely shouldn’t be, is strong, but stifled by the part of her with a grammar stick up its ass. Instead of either option, she scribbles _coffee virgin_ and then _(nathan)_ in smaller parentheses right underneath before slipping on a hand protector and placing it on the cool marble between them. Haley dare not risk handing it directly to him, for fear their hands would touch and she would do something embarrassing like drop the whole reason he came inside in the first place.

For some reason, The Haley went from small-looking to tiny once it was in Nathan’s much larger hands. “Here goes nothing,” rolls that easy voice, and then he’s taking a sip. The power dynamic seems to have shifted with the transference of the cup, and she nibbles the middle of her bottom lip in anxiousness.

Wouldn’t it just be great if he hated it? All her perceived authority would fly out the window. She’d never admit that her favorite order was far from on their fan favorite list, an apple caramel concoction with two shots of espresso and a healthy dollop of whipped cream that Haley had affectionately named _The Halo_.

The wiping rag between her hands is twisted to a painful degree before Nathan nods slowly, the foam mustache Haley had promised herself in her head appearing. “Okay. If all coffee tastes like this, I get why people are addicted to it.”

Her shoulders relax before she fully realized they’d been tense. A smile blooms on her face as Haley tucks the now capped Sharpie behind her ear, tucking the rag back into the variously utilized front pocket. “And now you know how the business stays open. Come on, I’ll ring you up.”

Nathan takes another long sip and shakes his head, his available hand digging in his back pocket for something, a wallet she sees a moment later. “No need.” Before Haley can lay into him for dining-and-dashing a damn coffee, serves her right for getting distracted by a pretty face, he fishes a very crinkled twenty out of the navy leather and places it in front of her. “Next time I need something to pick me up after a late practice, I know where to go. Have a good night, Haley.”

Hours, days later she’s going to kick herself for just staring at the twenty and then at his very broad, very attractive looking back as it exited their store without saying a word. Nathan’s leather jacket and inky hair help him fade into the night faster than usual through their huge windows, and Haley’s left to do nothing but stare at the crumpled portrait of presidential asshole Alexander Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda is the only founding father she supported) as some sort of proof she hadn’t dreamed it. 

“Holy, shit, Hales!” Brooke comes flying out of the door to the kitchen like a girl with wings, grabbing Haley’s shoulders and grinning with abandon. “I was coming back but I saw you with what super hot guy, and I thought I’d let the rest of your little _scene_ play out - I couldn’t get a really good look with the stupid circular window, and Keith teased me for spying, but who was that?”

Haley’s own eyebrows raise in response, because honestly she had no freaking idea _who that was._

What she did know, was that blue eyed, snarky, chocolate-fan Nathan was going to be haunting her brain for a good amount longer than that caffeine was going to be in her system.

Also, she was doomed.


	2. drizzle (chocolate)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would say more fluff, but nathan's backstory is a lot messier than haley's sorry. :(( nate's our angsty boy and we love him, c'mon.

Nathan Scott was a lot of things, but he’d never thought son of a murderer was going to be one of them.

_Attempted_ , murderer. 

Important distinction that only Dan himself seemed to care about.

In Nathan’s book, if you planned out when to get your _own brother_ alone, purchased a gun, and went ranting around town about how you were going to kill him, managing to get caught by a bystander who was in the right place at the right time, it doesn't matter if you succeed or not. You're still a literal monster. Sitting in court next to his mom, her grip white knuckled around his and his best suit on gangly, still growing sixteen year old shoulders, he had felt kind of like he was frozen in stasis that whole time. Like he was Walt Disney or something, kept on ice to wait for technology to catch up with bringing him back to life again. Thank God for basketball, the only thing that kept him from going mad with the words _yourdadsinprison_ , _yourdadsinprison_ thumping in a loop in his head to the beat of his heart, but also fuck basketball because it had soured his relationship with Dan even before the first time Nathan had accidentally seen his dad lay hands on his mother.

(He’s fucked up.)

(He’s got to be, with all that poison and negativity dragging him down whenever he tried desperately to claw his way somewhere else.)

He’d told Lucas a long time ago that he’d gotten the better part of the deal, confessions bouncing between them like the orange leather of their ball at a late night practice session, but it was one thing for you to know it and another for the world. Defensive tactics already stoked sky high from years of Deb’s distance and Dan’s verbal abuse go up another few stories after the sentencing, and suddenly, Nathan is no longer Nathan Scott, #23, foremost jock, Shooting Guard and Captain of the Tree Hill Ravens. He is all those things, filthy, disgustingly rich, with a mom who’d checked into rehab twice in middle school and a dad who was serving fifteen to life for first degree attempted murder. On Nathan’s _uncle_ , a family member he’d barely met and who’d had no clue about what Dan had been playing.

(Lucas is his brother, at the end of the day, and always will be, but some hard, dark part of Nathan would always hate the look of pity Lucas hadn’t been able to hide right as Dan was being led out in sullen chains. It had curdled in his stomach, forever associated with the worst day of his life. 

It wasn’t even that Nathan didn’t want his dad to be in prison, because he _did_ and how messed up was that? It was the knowing. The knowing that the one man in life that was supposed to love and support him had knowingly made Nathan’s home and sport life an utter misery since he’d once touched that bright orange plastic ball and showed a spark of talent. 

The shame of that would stay with him longer than Dan’s prison sentence ever would.)

It made him a little mean, in retrospect. Nathan hadn’t intended it, hadn’t liked it when his trailing crew of bitter boys did his dirty bidding, but sometimes, you don’t cope with things well. And it felt like the anger was never going to end. He chooses the wrong point guard to get him the ball at semi finals and their season comes to a screeching halt. The freedom of playing without a score, of spending the rest of the school year and summer playing himself cold sweat shaky, guzzle water like there’s no tomorrow, hard was just the catharsis he needed.

And, as a bonus, it had shown him who his real friends were.

Mouth, stalwart and defensive to anyone who dared say Nathan was anything like his father. Jake, supportive and always a friendly ear, who never questioned why holding his daughter Jenny calmed the storm inside Nate’s soul when it was at its worst. And Clay, the best at distractions and parties when they all wanted to forget the more important things in their lives. Nathan kept his status at the top of the high school food chain with bad boy credentials to cement his place, and graduated top of his social class (though somewhere near the bottom grades-wise).

College was supposed to be where it all came together for him, money being no object and multiple schools clamoring for the player who’d staged an epic comeback in his senior year and won a middling sized school’s first championship in sixty years. Deb was sober, and had been for over a year, supported by an unnecessary manager job at a bar that gave her something to look forward to. Nathan worried about her a little bit, surrounded by substances nearly every second she was at work, but Deb assured him that they were all reminders not to screw her life up again. 

(He didn’t know why, but he believed her this time,

And in her gross new courtship with the hot (her words, not his) new bartender.)

Dan, had wanted him to go to some big fancy college. Dan, had wanted him to go to UCLA, or University or Kentucky, or all the big names in higher education basketball. 

So Nathan said fuck Dan.

And went local.

CW University wasn’t cream of the crop, but it was respectable and close enough to home so that if Nathan had a really bad feeling he could go visit his mom. He lurked around his uncle's kitchen the first half of the summer before he left for pre-season camp, and spent the first year on campus with Clay as his roommate.

One year down, and Nathan figures out that he likes college, he likes his dumbass (and becoming closest) friend Clay as a roommate, playing basketball in front of bigger crowds than he could’ve properly imagined in high school, and the (girls) dormitories. He hates campus food, essays due at midnight on Friday nights, jungle juice, and the (boys) dormitories. 

Jake moves back to the town, the weary victor of a custody battle that had forced him to transfer schools for the duration to be close to his kids bitch of a mother until trial was over. The owners of the townhouse across the street of the one Jake shares with his parents are looking to move, and the timing looks good to Nathan. So he suggests to Clay that they move. All this money their parents were spending on housing would at least be enjoyable if they could have a place for themselves. (Plus, parties were so much easier to throw when Clay didn’t have to use whatever he was learning in sport agent classes in sweet talk on the RA). 

Luckily, with a promise of supplying the first month's cache of beer, Clay agrees. And gets their parents to as well.

(Best friend with super powered convincing skills for the win.)

Except for the fact that it was kind of frustrating the hell out of Nathan that he seemed to strike out about as much as Clay got lucky. Sort of. Situation was, Nathan had one night stands coming out of his ass. Clay to a lesser extent. Every girl that went after Nate, however, was more interested in his future than the person he was right then. They were crazy, or needy, copies of someone they thought she would be, and Nathan hated fakeness. _Hated_ false fronts and pretenses because he’d had to put them up for so goddamn long to protect something that, if found out, would’ve made their lives easier. Clay, on the other hand, had an eye for the good ones.

What the fuck was Nate doing wrong, _he genuinely wanted to know_.

It’s junior fucking year of college, and he’s running out of bedpost for knocks, but he hasn’t figured out what made Clay’s eyes go all goopy over Sara before her car accident, now what drove his friend to pay her grave midnight visits and bury a tiny ring Nathan knew without a doubt was the equivalent of three months of pay at Clay’s agency internship. He wants to know why Lucas cheated on the girlfriend he never got to meet because of the camp he went to the summer after freshman years, why Mouth still hissed when he heard the name _Rachel_ even over the phone in Oregon.

Clay’s over at his mom’s house for dinner, sure to bring some of Bea and Polly’s leftovers back with him, and the apartment just feels too quiet, so Nathan grabs his house keys and the leather jacket he spent half his life in, it seemed, and leaves out. Perks of living in a college town was that a lot of business ran on college kid hours, and he figured it couldn’t be that hard to find something to do.

White and purple neon signs proclaiming the supremacy of a known addictive substance over another one, boys, catch his eye after a while and make him realize that he’s on the opposite side of campus-town than he usually spends time. In a sea of commonplace, buyable at Walgreens coffee cups, _Caffeine Over Bro’s_ distinctive black stood out in a lot of the classes he’d been in over the years, and Nathan had caught a couple rumors that the girls that worked there was pretty hot. Usually, that was enough incentive, but for a man without money problems, he tended to frugal if he could be, and the black crap Clay had been brewing every morning for two and a half years tended to work just as well. 

He was _here_ , though. 

Through the curled iron, wicked charcoal strokes against the fogged (bottom half) clear (upper half) glass giving it a bit of Sleeping Beauty feel, Nathan notes that the place seems mostly dead at the moment. Mostly dead, and near completely empty when the dark head whose back was to him disappeared somewhere to the back, leaving one soul in the, he’d assumed, normally busy place.

That one small person’s over enthused theatrics, for a reason Nate couldn’t attempt to guess, and small tower stoked his curiosity to a high enough level for him to open the door and walk in before he even knew he was doing it.

She has really long hair. That’s the first thing Nathan notices, long and feathery soft looking, somehow holding a little bit of rose gold in the moody but well lit coffee shop, even more lending to the old fairy tale.

Also, she looks bored out of her goddamn mind. 

She doesn’t seem to notice him, so he tries to get her attention, and when he finally succeeds she pops up like an unconscious princess (more realistically, vaguely annoyed energizer bunny) pocket sized, all so close to rolling honey brown eyes, and flying hair. He has to fight the sudden stiffening of his spine at the initial coughing, because what if she knew?

(Nathan felt like the whole town did.)

But she just asks him to repeat herself, gets a little turn up of a button nose when he admits to knowing fuck all about all things caffeine, and he’s suddenly smitten by how she stands her ground under the full wattage of his charm. While they talk (or he teases, she gives it right back if Nathan's being honest) he gives her his full attention, usually reserved for coach's playbook and Clay when the two of them sparred at the school gym. There's a silver filigree necklace with a cursive letter _H_ on her slender neck, and it's the perfect invitation to slide his gaze down a bit more to trace the scalloped edges of the white long sleeved shirt she wore. He's never really felt one way or the other about the color purple, but it brings out pretty tones in her quite _something_ hair it might be his new favorite color. Her hair that is, not purple.

(When she gives him her back fully for the first time, the spit goes dry in his mouth. Eyes that wide and innocent did not belong on a body with an ass like that.)

There’s no shadow of his history in said clear, molten eyes, and Nate most definitely does not give a damn what drink she's making, because anything made by those small fingers and a pinky ring that was sexier than it should be was going to rock his socks. He just knew it.

(For the record, the drink _was_ very good. Nathan's wired until nearly one AM, half due to the drink and half due to the electric shock she'd given him. It kicks his ass at practice the next morning, but even suicide drills can't keep the smile off of his face.)

All in all, he might've made a dope exit, but he had no fucking clue how to follow that up. He made excuses all the time, driving home from grocery shopping or friends houses to drive past the coffee shop, but he must've caught them on an odd day. Every single time Nathan inches his cobalt blue mustang past the corner shop, it seems to be busy. College students seem to be the bulk of the customers, but the client range went from busy lawyers and their harried assistants to old men, stretching out on the front patio, playing with checkers the same colors as the rest of the shop. One day, he slinks in during rush hour on a rare day when Haley was working, and doesn't even order anything. Just sits in a back booth he glares a freshman down for, clutching the cup she'd given him over a week ago, and watch her in her element.

Her high ponytail swings her waves in a way that's got him mesmerized from his spot next to the short black bookshelves, and Nathan looks for its swing when her short self is nearly hidden by the tall pastry paste and her co-workers. Her laugh is often heard, loud and unrestrained whether she’s talking to the oddly mustached cook or two girls that always seem to be whirling at her side, and it’s a travesty he hadn’t heard it the night they met. Nathan decides that at some point, he’s going to be the reason one of those left from her pretty mouth.

(He chickens out _again_ and makes his escape the next time she disappears into the swinging kitchen doors, telling himself he has class in a half hour anyway. Clay, this being the one class the two of them shared, asks him why he's not throwing away his empty coffee cup and will not take environmental consciousness for an answer through the rest of Business Ethics. He resists the urge to shove some ethics up his friend's ass.)

* * *

It's Jake that finally breaks the camel's back. Or Jenny, by way of Jake. 

Nathan can still remember how small Jenny was when Jake first came home, gutted by Nicki's disappearance but wholly devoted to the tiny bundle in his arms. He'd never been more afraid of the Scott curse, that it would somehow leak out of his fingers and poison something this innocent and tiny. She's five now, with her dad's crinkly eyes and love for building things, though her case it's Legos and not the skills her dad was learning in carpentry trade school. They're on a walk, and Nathan's pushing the empty stroller with one hand, Jenny sitting pretty in Jake's arms.

"So yeah, this girl in my class saw my parents dropping Jenny off afterwards, and offered to babysit, schedule permitting. Peyton's the prettiest girl in Music Theory by _far_ and we've been texting for like a week. She said that she works at a coffee shop around here...and later today, Jenny's going to ride a unicorn and become a princess."

"Huh?" Nathan blinks, coming back into focus and directing his gaze at his friend. They're getting closer to _Caffeine Over Bro's_ and it's like there's a radius of barista-Haley Kryptonite that robs him of the social skills Deb had worked awfully hard to instill in him.

Jake squints. "Something's up with you."

"No, man. Just thinking about coaches notes from last practice." Blatant lie. He prays Jake will accept it.

Jake just keeps squinting at him, and Nathan sees his hope of him letting it go swirl down the drain. Jenny points an excited chubby finger at the windows of the cafe, spotting a patron biting with clear bliss into a gigantic oatmeal raisin cookie. No points for taste. "I think we should get cookies, Daddy."

"You want cookies? I think we can make that happen."

How Jake keeps his you're-bullshitting-me face on while his tone slips into Dad voice, Nathan doesn't know, but it's kind of scary. Sometimes, he laments keeping his friends from high school around. They know too much.

" _Or_ , Daddy can take you home and we can share a pint of Rocky Road together." Nathan barters, banking on his goddaughters love of him and their favorite ice cream.

Jenny shakes her head, and Nathan comes to the unfortunate conclusion that he ranks below giant cookies on Jenny's list. "That cookie looks way better right now."

"I happen to agree with you, Jenny. My girl has such good taste."

Nathan switches tactics. "C'mon man, let's not. They're clearly...swamped." He motions lamely to the middling sized lunch crowd. "It'll take forever to get something."

"What's wrong Nate? Jenny, do you know why Uncle Nathan doesn't want to go into the colorful looking," Jake checks the name " _Caffeine Over Bro's_?" 

Jenny turns big dark eyes to Nathan, not sending the hypothetical of her dad's question. "Because sugar rots your teeth?"

"Good answer. But no, I think Uncle Nathan doesn't like something in there. _Or_ -" Here Jake's eyes light up, and Nathan knows for sure that he's fucked. "or, he very much likes something in there. But he's too C-H-I-C-K-E-N-S-H-I-T to go in."

Nathan stares at his friend balefully, parking the stroller next to one already at rest outside, folding strongly corded forearms over a grey sleeveless muscle tee. Of fucking course this would happen to him on a day it looked like he was trying out to be an extra on _Rocky 10_ or something. "I hate you. You shouldn't be allowed to spell things like that. You have a _kid_."

"Yes I do have a kid, and this kid and I want to go in." Jake affirmed, pushing open the door with a cheery smile. "You're getting a cookie, baby girl. Uncle Nathan's treat."

Jenny, not caring about anything but her future cookie, fist pumps the way Clay taught her. "Yay!"

Nathan, for his part, fights to keep a growl trapped in his throat and follows behind, shoulders already bracing.

The air conditioning isn't as brutal as it had been the other night, and there is a slightly different assortment of workers than there had been the first time Nathan had strolled through the doors. Four girls, one trailed by a lost looking but definitely having a good time guy, manned _Caffeine Over Bro's_ today, and at initial glance none of them seemed to be Haley. The girl behind the counter has big curly blonde brown hair and breaks out in a big, only a smidgen self conscious smile. "Jake! You came! And you brought your baby girl, oh she's even cuter than the last time I saw her!"

Jake grins all cross eyes at her. "Hey, Peyton." Peyton, Nathan assumes the girl in question, pats herself down like she forgot what she was wearing, still grinning stupidly. 

"Oh, I must look like such a mess. Give a girl some warning next time, huh?"

"Stop it, you look great."

Okay, so he was putting together that maybe he wasn't the only person who liked _something_ in this store. 

"Rachel! Hey can you take the register real quick?" It's phrased as a question, but Peyton's eyes are locked on Jake and Jenny and her tone brokers no arguments.

A girl with dark red hair and a powerful eye roll grumbles something snarky under her breath. "Fine, anything to stop bussing tables." Rachel and Peyton pass each other at the end of the counter, the slab lifting up with surprising ease. Jake, ditching him but sitting at a table with a full view of Nathan, gives him his version of a handless thumbs up with his hands full of baby, a hearty lift of bushman eyebrows. Nathan just shakes his head and lifts his middle knuckle at him, unwilling to fully flip Jake off in full view of Jenny. He at least tried to be an okay example for the kid, after all.

Rachel seems to perk up when she gets a full look at him, but she's shit out of luck. Maybe she'd have a shot if she changed that lock of hair she was twirling around her finger to rose gold, then maybe. "What can I get you, handsome?"

It is at this moment that Nathan realizes that Haley never told him what his drink was, and he curses himself all over again. "Uh...it had chocolate in it?" Fuck, he's grasping at straws. "And...foam?"

"He got a cocoa dark roast. Extra foamy, a splash of milk, and chocolate drizzle. A lot of it.” Haley’s there, all of a sudden, those big eyes locked straight on him, and Nathan feels the air get knocked out of his lungs. He wasn’t sure if he’d forgotten how adorable she was, starkly apparent now in an empire waisted light green dress, tapered very complementarity to her waist and breasts. Dumbly, Nathan registers that she looks good in green, and decides he doesn’t need any more evidence to conclude that the same would be true for any color. The hair that haunted the edge of his dreams like a sunbeam hung in a loose braid down the side of her face, and he’s too lost in the curl of it for a second to get to the rest of her - cup upheld, lower lip bitten hard.

“What she said.” Nathan takes the cup from her and purposefully lets his bare fingers touch hers, just to see. Haley pulls back her hand as if she’d been shocked, and flushes a very appealing peach color. “Hi again.”

“Hi, yourself coffee virgin.”

“He’s a virgin?” Rachel, forgotten but now thoroughly turned off with a wrinkle of her nose. “Whatever. I’m going to go do...something, in the back. Let me know when you two are done flirting.” She flounces away, but neither Nathan or Haley seem to care about the loss of her presence.

“So. A cocoa dark roast?”

“Yep. Don’t forget the milk and extra foam next time you order it, though. It’s extra.”

“Or, different plan, I just only come when you’re here and I won’t have to learn anything special.”

Haley’s mouth quirks up on one side, shiny and pink, and she leans on the countertop in front of her, rising on her tiptoes. “Unlike you, I actually have a life to live. Double majoring and everything. I can’t spend my every waking hour here just so that _you_ don’t have to learn your own coffee order.”

“Not ‘ _you’_. Nathan.” He corrects, taking a sip of his drink and giving her a foamy smile. 

“Nathan.” She repeats, and something in Nathan goes putty-like at the sound. It probably also had something to do with the wisp of strawberry blonde that had drifted to frame her chin. It was near physically painful to him to hold back on tucking it behind her ear for her.

“So what’s the damage, Haley…” he trails off, hoping she’ll fill in the blanks for him.

She does. Maybe she’s in a generous mood. “James. Haley James. It’s four eighty nine with tax, since you got the smallest size and everything.”

Nathan hums in the back of his throat, already working out the same bill as before. “I disagree. I think the biggest drinks come in the smallest packages. Or cups, in this case.”

Haley narrows those too clear eyes at him as if she was trying to figure out if he was making a dirty joke or something, and she couldn’t figure out what it was. “I don’t think that’s the saying -”

“ _Haley!_ Haley, please tell Julian that while it is not _technically_ against the rules to put ‘love and care’ into every cup of coffee we sell, it’s ridiculous to take a million years when we have a business to run? I mean, work at?” A very opinionated, very indignant looking brunette girl has stomped up behind the counter next to Haley, the one Nathan had seen earlier with the tall brunette shadow. 

Curly haired shadow waves at Nathan. “What’s up man.”

Nathan just looks at him. “Nothing much. Coffee, I guess.”

Bangs-having firecracker isn’t even sparing him a glance, focused on a trying really hard not to look amused Haley. “Hales, please? He’s not listening to me!” If Nathan listens really hard, he can _hear_ the stomped foot indicated in ‘not listening to me’.

“Julian, if Brooke says you can only put robot-like dedication into your work, you have to listen to her.” Haley says in a mock teacher tone, a small hand going up to try and physically hide her smile. “Nathan, please forgive my best friend. New hires get her all wacked out for some reason.” The pinky ring winks at him, brighter in the daylight, and Nathan suddenly feels a bit tighter in the pant. He shifts his hips unconsciously, too distracted by it to realize one, glaringly huge thing - he _knew_ the other girl, with her imperious tone and eyeshadow that perfectly matched the lavender walls. He’d only seen a picture once, posted on instagram in the dead of summer, washed out and crooked from Lucas’s dumbass black and white aesthetic, but those dimples were undeniable.

_Brooke. The girl who’s friends had run Lucas out of town._ Nathan would’ve respected her more if it wasn’t for the fact that any hopes he had about Haley had gotten shot in the face at about the time he realized that she knew exactly who he was in turn.

“I’m all _wacked out_ because pretty boy here has been here for two days and still thinks he can grin his way out of things.” Brooke swings her gaze towards his, and there it was. An initial note of shock, and then that shadow that strangers who knew far too much about him got when they took him all in. _Nathan Scott, basketball star whose father is in jail for murder. (Attempted.)_ His past comes rushing at him from behind like a sneak attack, and his grip on the cup isn’t just to make sure it doesn’t spill anymore, it’s to steady himself. “Nathan?” Brooke asks, a little unsure.

“That’s me.” He gives her a two fingered salute, then directs all his attention to Haley. “So here’s what I owe,” and at this Nathan reaches over the counter and tugs at the loose tie on that damn purple apron so that she comes closer and he can tuck the twenty into her front pocket. “And as usual, everything else in the tip jar. See you later?” He’s already backing away, because he can text Jake from around the corner that someone had recognized who he was without getting in trouble with his friend, and also because he didn’t want to see the very same darkness in Haley’s eyes that had appeared in Brooke’s. Not in front of his face.

“Later,” Haley confirms with a nod, and he’s backing away, out of there before he can hear whatever first word is going to come out of Brooke’s mouth. It isn’t until after he’s shot off a text to Jake telling him he would be waiting outside, that he notices the white scrawl on the side.

There, in that loopy script, it read _coffee first timer (please be gentle)_. And underneath, a phone number.

(His heart nearly stops.)

It’s killing him, holding off on texting it, but Nathan doesn’t know if he’s ready to take whatever apology messages she’s going to send about it all being a mistake, or she doesn’t find people hot who have criminals in their family, which Nate knows is totally fair but still hates anyway. He makes it two days before he types something, messy and obsessed over, at one am at night.

**nathan:** _cocoa dark roast. a splash of milk, and extra foam._

Ten minutes later, his phone pings and he knocks it off the bedside table trying to get to it.

**haley:** _And chocolate drizzle._

 **haley:** _Good to know your memory works better than your math. Even I know that tipping fifteen dollars on a not even five dollar check is ridiculous._

Well.

Maybe there was hope for him yet.


	3. milk (just a splash)

**nathan:** _i’m going to have to disagree with you, troy bolton is NOT the most iconic fictional basketball player has ever seen. i don’t even have to look at his stats to know that they don’t match up to michael jordan in space jam._

 **haley:** _The Wildcats are the best high school basketball team Albuquerque has ever seen and I will not hear them slandered._

 **nathan:** _well then turn your ears off, because from what i’ve seen with jenny bolton's jump shot could use a lot of work. and WHAT the hell are you doing awake this early._

 **haley:** _It’s only 8 AM._

 **nathan:** _only? if practice didn’t start in five minutes, you can bet your ass i wouldn’t have dragged myself out of bed and into the shower an hour ago._

 **haley:** _So sue me, I like how quiet the library is in the morning._

 **nathan:** _you would._

 **nathan:** _nerd._

 **haley:** _Go jock yourself._

* * *

God help her, she was incapable of half assing things.

Call it the endless hours Haley had spent in her formative years (and last year, and last week, and two hours ago) watching _Parks and Recreation_ but when epically mustached Ron Swanson said “never half ass two things, whole ass one thing” she knew he was speaking directly to her. It's bad, in this particular circumstance, because the first thing Haley had done after getting home, her shift having ended forty five minutes before the other girls for her online tutoring session, was to google ‘Dan Scott, Tree Hill, North Carolina’. Anyone else would’ve clicked on a video clip from a local news station and called it a day, but _no_ \- Haley took full advantage of the Freedom of Information Act and hunted down the entire, officially documented record of the court proceedings from four years ago.

She gasps out loud three minutes later.

“Peyton, talk some sense into our friend. Tutor girl here has a crush on a _criminal_.”

“I don’t have a crush.” Haley said automatically, but Brooke completely ignores her, which, figures.

“A what?” Peyton turned surprised green eyes on Brooke when the girl plopped unceremoniously and opinionated into the seat next to Jake, the red cushion sinking with her sudden weight. Julian took a stand next to her chair, all inquisitive brown eyes, button down black button down and perfectly coiffed hair, and Haley couldn’t help but think the two of them looked kind of good together.

“A crush. On a _criminal_.” Brooke stressed, pressing hands into the table while she waited for the seriousness of it all to sink into everyone. Every time she says that last word, something in Haley’s gut drops. Made sense that Nathan was too good to be true.

“Wait.” Jake, the sweet single father Peyton had just introduced Haley to a week or so ago, looks up from his phone with a furrowed brow. His daughter is settled on the dark blonde’s lap, happily eating the cookie Peyton had given her. “Nathan? He’s not a criminal.”

“Well _no_ , but criminality does run in his blood, and Dan Scott’s other…” Brooke eyed Jenny and decided on a different, less explicit word. “ _kid_ didn’t exactly try to break that mold.”

“Hold up. You know Lucas?” Jake looked about as thrown as Haley felt.

Brooke snorted with derision, even if the last moment of it is unsure in a note Haley knew only she and Peyton would pick up on. “Knew, past tense. Though if I could scrape every last shred of that time from my mind, I absolutely would.” 

Now Haley’s really confused. “Wait, wait, wait. Rewind. Who’s Dan Scott?” She lost her grip on the back of the last chair of the table and took a seat herself, one boy and his baby surrounded by four baristas distinctively not working. Thank God Bevin excelled at times like this, orbiting the customers like she was in her own little world (which she nearly always was). A yell from Brooke had brought Rachel unwillingly back from the breakroom, and Junk was hard at work with Keith in the back. _CoB_ seemed to be well under control, even if Brooke’s current emotional state was not.

Brooke seems prepared to answer Haley’s question, but Jake got their first. “Nathan’s dad did some bad things. Yes, that much is true.”

“Like not cleaning up behind yourself?” Jenny piped up.

“Yes, exactly like that.” Her dad soothed, though the look he shot around the table told them it was nothing like that. “He fell off the crazy train a long time ago, but he went over a cliff when Nate was sixteen. Dan’s in the big house now.” 

This time, a black hole opened up in Haley’s gut instead, squeezing with compassion. You truly couldn’t choose your parents, Haley would know - she was scarred from the way her parents still danced with each other like they were in their twenties and childless, Brooke’s parents built a raising technique out of flimsy plastic credit cards, and Peyton’s dad was always out of town when she wanted him the most. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to find out that your dad, the person supposed to be one of two premiere role models in your life, let you down so spectacularly. And in the eyes of everyone who knew you, too. High School must’ve been actual hell.

“Okay Baby Daddy, lets not forget one of the most important parts of the story. The person Dan tried to do bad things to, it was Keith. _Our_ Keith.” Brooke gestured fervently to the swinging kitchen door, perfectly caught in the moment to reveal the man in question, red bandana and gigantic smile while he poured muffin mix into their industrial tins. Peyton, Haley, and Julian, the ones unaware of this scandalous fact and who knew Keith, unlike Jake, widened their eyes are nearly the same time.

Haley is the first to speak. “Who would want to hurt Keith? He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s the sweetest thing in this shop next to his dumb car-shaped cake pops.”

“Hey, if you figure out why someone would want to do that to their own brother, call up Dan and tell him you get it. But the rest of us never did.” Jake sighed, a weight on him that hadn’t been there before. Peyton placed a hand on his knee under the table, a move that could’ve gone unnoticed if it wasn’t for an untimed gust of wind that blew up the tablecloth and caught Haley’s eye. “Nathan didn’t take it very well. It got a little dark for him for a moment there, the year after it started, but he’s much better now. Did a lot of growing. He’s different, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m more shocked that you guys didn’t hear about it, actually. This town’s not that big.”

“Haley, Peyton, and I went to Old Tree.” Brooke explained. “Lucas and Nathan, and I’m assuming you since it sounds like you were around when that whole thing happened, went to New Tree.” An economic boom thirty years ago had caused a lot of families to move to Tree Hill, and they were forced to build another high school. They failed, however, to name it something other than Tree Hill High, so most of the town referred to the two schools on opposite sides of town as Old Tree and New Tree.

“I’m liking this job more and more every day.” Julian grinned crookedly. “Much juicer gossip than my old job.”

Brooke made an unhappy noise under her breath and slapped his leg. “Shut up, Julian. I don’t remember you getting an invite to this conversation in the first place.”

Jake gave the flirtationship next to him a short look, and then turned back to Haley. “Look, all I’m saying is, Nathan isn’t his father. And he’s a genuinely good guy, under all that cool guy, basketball star front. Speaking of, said good guy is waiting for me, and I drove today so he’s SOL without me.” He made his goodbyes, which Haley participated in halfheartedly because there was only so much she could focus on with all the thoughts that spun around her head.

That was then. This was now, and Haley was squawking into her empty, normally shared apartment reading the testimonies against this guy. Dan Scott, the father of the bluest, grey eyes Haley had ever seen. This guy had no love lost with anyone, it seemed. His wife, ex baby momma (finding out that was _Karen_ had Haley goggle eyed in shock), old high school coach, and employees had not one good thing to see about him. 

The urge to pop a bag of popcorn and take some color coded notes was strong, so thank God for the tutoring session that Haley couldn’t miss. She decided to take the ink and paper L and had her HP printing out each page instead while she Facetimed Tim and walked him through his geometry homework. (Haley had been tutoring Tim since they’d gone to high school together, and when his family had moved he’d refused to work with anyone else. Far be it from Haley to say no to another stream of pocket change, the twice a week call helping fund her laundry room visits.)

After she hung up, Haley made it about halfway through a twenty page breakdown on acoustic performances before she surrendered to her intense curiosity and finished reading through the court doc. Nathan had to testify too, and though there wasn’t a lot in the record about how he looked, the words spoke for himself. Her heart breaks all over again reading about him talking about the verbal, and his moms case physical abuse, they’d suffered from his father before he’d even started talking about murder. When she’s done, she heads to Youtube and searches _Nathan Scott Basketball_ . Search results calls Haley basic for using such generic words, so she amends it, adding the _college_ and _north carolina_. Color her shocked that he went to the same college she and the girls went to, and then mark her down as horny because damn.

Like _damn_. 

If he had this kind of effect on her, blown up on her laptop, Haley hates to think what it would be like to see Nathan Scott playing basketball live in front of her very eyes. She literally has to fan herself at a couple points on the video. Once, he takes off his shirt on the sidelines during a recorded practice, and she’s so distracted she spills her waterbottle all over her freaking shirt.

(Haley had never been so thankful to be home alone.)

_She_ , however, had made the first move here, so it was up to Nathan to text her. She hoped that he would message her, but kept a firm lid of reality on top of it - Haley wasn’t sure of how slim her chances would be. Two nights after he’d basically booked it from _CoB_ Haley’s midway through french braiding Brooke’s hair, the girls head on her lap, in the middle of _Ten Things I Hate About You_ when her phone vibrated against her thigh. Brooke shifted so that that Haley can get to it, but was too busy in her ‘who’s cuter, Heath Ledger or Joseph Gordon Levitt’ argument with Peyton to pay much attention.

It’s an unfamiliar number, but a too familiar coffee order, and Haley couldn't help her smile.

**nathan:** _my mom always taught me to tip generously. be happy i take from her side of the family._

 **haley:** _I don’t know about me, but the tip jar was for sure pretty happy._

So maybe, they text every day after that.

So maybe, Haley complained about picking up a shift to him but did it anyway (Bevin, for whatever reason, needed to spend as much time as possible with her cat while it was at the vet clinic) Nathan showed up to keep her company for the rest of the last two hours of it. Haley's lucky that it's Peyton who was closing with her, and not Quinn or Brooke, because she loves them both but they asked way too many questions, and despite him being the topic of _frequent_ discussion at work, she wanted to keep him all to herself a little bit longer.

He’s too damn handsome, that Nathan Scott, and she nearly rung up two orders wrong with him distracting her. The worst part is that he’s barely even doing anything, just some required reading and downing his now signature drink in a booth in direct view of Haley's register, but. _Wow_ , his torso, in that navy t-shirt. _Holy shit_ , the neon lights liked to bring out the cerulean tones of his impossibly dark hair, made his eyes and cheekbones stand out in relief. Peyton plucked her in the head before she over whips the cream on an order and Haley couldn't help but blush.

Really, there was no one to blame but herself.

**nathan:** _okay, okay you wore me down. you can take me out on a date, under one condition._

 **haley:** _I literally was talking about my group project. I didn't say a single thing about taking you out on a date._

 **nathan:** _sounds like hearsay to me_ _. don't you want to hear the condition?_

 **haley:** _... I'm listening._

 **nathan:** _for the low, low price of you saying three nice things about me, you get to have plans tomorrow night. WITH ME. star point guard of the cw bobcats. maybe you've heard of my accomplishments._

 **haley:** _Hmmm. I could be persuaded._

 **nathan:** _i'll even go first._

 **haley:** _Okay, sold._

**nathan is typing…**

**nathan is typing...**

**haley:** _Well I'm waiting._

 **nathan:** _hold your horses, haley james._

 **nathan:** _1, your initial patience at caffeine dumb me was pretty cute. even if initially, you didn’t seem keen on acting like i, a paying customer, existed. 2, you’re the only person i’ve ever met in real life that can say big words like ‘idiopathic’ and still look cute. and 3, you treat people fairly. me included. that’s more rare than you know._

**haley is typing…**

**haley:** _I now regret letting you go first. How am I supposed to follow that?_

 **nathan:** _give it your best shot. or in your case, a granny shot._

 **haley:** _Shut up, I don’t remember asking you._

 **haley:** _For number one, I admire the way you’ve become my most loyal customer, and trusted my recommendation skills. For two, that dumb smile you get after being hopped up on caffeine delivered by my, undeniably flawless hands._

 **haley:** _And three, well. Looking at you isn’t the WORST thing in the world. Probably._

 **nathan:** _it’s okay, haley. we both know i’m super hot._

  
  


All that he’d tell her was to wear a nice dress and some heels and he’d be by the shop to pick her up at eight, and Haley was suffering an ungodly amount at the ambiguity. She liked to have a _game plan_ when going on dates. Objectively, she hadn’t been on a terrible many of them, an awkward couple of dates with Damien West that ended in her literally shutting the door on his face, and that one time Chris Keller, the one student who seemed to end up in every damn class she was taking for her Music Major, somehow conned her into going to a movie with him. He’d ended up with popcorn in his hair, and no date. 

(Eventually, the two of them had made up, but Chris made it clear he’d always be down for a round two if Haley was.

Spoiler alert, Haley didn’t think she would ever be. But she did like the way he could write a killer bridge.)

Nathan’s going to be there at eight, and Haley starts panicking the day before at around the same time. So she ropes Brooke in to helping her choose an outfit.

“I’m still not entirely sure of this Nathan Scott, coffee girl.” Brooke rifles through her closet like a girl on a mission, sporting a fresh new do that brings out the loops in her curls. She’s wearing a cream cable knit sweater that Haley has literally never seen before in her life.

“Brooke, I didn’t ask you for your opinion on my date tonight, I asked you to help me get dressed for it. That’s all.” Haley folds her arms over her chest from the middle of her comforter, still wrapped in a towel after her shower. When they chose bedrooms, she’d wanted this one because of the long window seat on the biggest wall, tall and romantic. Sunken bookshelves, sea green walls and a big signed _Les Miserables_ poster that was one of her absolute favorite things, and a speaker that changed colors while it was in use. It wasn’t anything super special, but the guitar and small keyboard really made it the safe haven it was for her. Lucas may have sucked, but she appreciated that he knew how to install soundproof foam on the wall that bordered with Peytons. (The other girl had needed it too.)

“I’m just saying. Make sure you drop me and P. Sawyer your location in case he is actually like his father and tries to dump you in a ditch, okay?”

Somehow, Haley doesn’t feel like she’s in danger - her heart, maybe, not her well being - but it still irks her the slightest bit that Brooke seems so against it. Brooke’s opinion, fickle as it could be, was always scathingly honest even if it wasn’t something she wanted to hear, and Haley valued that. “I will. But I’d think you, of all people, should know that people’s parents don’t decide who they are.” Brooke’s hands falter, hazel eyes hitting Haley’s own.

Victoria and Ted Davis, well. Great they parents, they were not.

“I guess that's fair.” The brunette says softly, fingering one of Haley’s cardigans. “Still. Just in case, okay?”

“Fine.” Haley smiles a little bit, pulling her takes-forever-to-dry hair over her shoulder. “Now did you find anything?”

* * *

It’s seven forty-five, and Haley’s almost done getting ready in the employee bathroom, not the most optimal of prep places, but it would do. She gets her hair into two cute buns, blonde wisps at her temples, and zips herself into the dress Brooke chose. It’s pale yellow and off the shoulder, two thin straps tying back the waist. The skirt is medium length and swishes against her legs, and when Haley turns in the mirror she thinks that maybe, she doesn’t look half bad. There’s a knock on the door so she answers it, swiping on a last coat of lipgloss. “What?”

“He’s here. _Already_.” Peyton is entirely too happy with the fluster her words cause. “No need to try and finish Barry Allen fast. I doubt he won’t wait for you.”

“Okay, but I don’t _want_ him to wait, because I was always taught that that’s rude, so get _out,_ ” Haley pushes her back out the door. “And buy me some time.”

Approximately two minutes later, she finishes packing up her makeup pouch and grabs her purse with her other hand, evaluating yourself in the mirror. _Okay, Haley Bob. You don’t look half bad. Now go out there, and have fun on your date. And try not to make too big a fool of yourself._ One more deep breath, and Haley sails out of the door, drops off the pouch, and through the kitchen to the front. She’s glad that she decided on wedges instead of something more spindly and Brooke-like because her ankles threaten to give out when she gets an eyeful of him.

Nathan Scott, rubbing his hands together while he lingers at the spot where Haley had first laid eyes on him. His shoulders announce themselves even in the blue button down he was worried, and she let her thoughts drop to the gutter for a moment to imagine what his bare skin would look like underneath. There is no reason on God’s green earth why Nate could turn normal dress pants into some of the sexiest things she’d ever seen when he tucked his hand in the pocket, and Haley had to tamp down the powerful urge to jump his bones. An entirely unfamiliar emotion when not aimed at Chris Hemsworth or Henry Cavill, but one she had literally no control over.

“You don’t clean up half bad.”

His head snaps up, those powerful eyes and an instant smile, and something inside Haley tumbles at his feet. “You, on the other hand, look beautiful.”

If Haley had a mirror, she would put literal money on her cheeks being on fire right now. Too bad she didn’t give a shit about that at the moment.

“Have fun you two!” Peyton leans her head on arms atop the pastry case and bats her eyes at Haley. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Haley blushes, falling in step next to Nathan as they head for the door. “Pay no attention to her, she’s on drugs.”

“That was _one_ time!”

Nathan holds the door open, but Haley’s not two steps over the threshold before he touches her arm. She looks up at him, eyes wide and lips a little parted like she’s waiting for something, but she doesn’t know what. “Wait. I forgot something.”

Haley licks her lips. ‘What did you forget?”

His head bends down, and then the rest of him, and Haley only registers the _moment_ before she’s literally being kissed across the doorway of her place of work. Peyton stops singing off key to the bridge of a Switchfoot song and whoops from somewhere behind them, punctuated with a couple of claps, but Haley’s a bit too lost in the absolute wooziness Nathan was inspiring to even hear that.

Because goddamn, she knew Nathan could play basketball but she _hadn’t_ known he could kiss. 

And boy, could he.

It’s gentle, and insistent, and when his hand cups her face Haley can’t help a little sigh. So what if she had to push almost on her tiptoes in freaking heels - this, was worth it. For a first kiss, it feels right in all kinds of deep ways that she can’t bring herself to overthink right now. He tastes almost like his order, bitter and sweet, and Haley wants more. Wants whatever he’s willing to give.

Haley blinks, lazy and sated when Nathan finally pulls back, and he breaks out into that boyish grin.

"You shouldn't have done that. The date hasn't even officially started yet, what if people think I'm floozy?" The tease falls from her mouth deceptively easy when her lips were still buzzing.

"Maybe not. But I wanted to." Nathan kisses her once again for good measure, light and pleased. "I’m good. You ready?”

“Yep! I mean yes, yes I am.” 

He takes the time to lace his fingers with hers when they’re finally out in the cricket soundtracked night, and Haley thinks she’d trust him to lead her anywhere.


	4. piping (hot)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a bit shorter than the others i think (i never know anymore), but!! take it!!

Haley James, it turned out, tasted just as strawberry blonde as she looked.

She lingered on Nathan’s lips even as he parked the car, rushing around the front of it to open the door for her and take her hand once more. “So where are you taking me?” Haley rubs the hand not wound with his on her bare shoulders and something twinges in Nathan to think of her being cold, so he twines his arm around her instead.

“Better?”

“Better.” Haley snuggles in, the tips of her hair buns just poking over his shoulder, and Nathan knows he would do anything to keep her looking as safe and happy as she did right now. Worry that she wouldn’t like the restaurant he chose still twists the bottom of his stomach, but he does his best to ignore it.

“I’ll be completely honest.” Nathan confesses as they ascend the small set of stairs to the front of the establishment, all gleaming wood and warm lights. “I had a little bit of help.”

“And what's that supposed to mean, mister?” Haley narrows her eyes at him playfully, but they go wide again when she gets an eyeful of the foyer. It’s a really nice place, _CoreFive_ and he’d been warned to call ahead. Nathan, for once, had listened. “Nathan, this is really nice. We could’ve gone to a pizza place or something, this really wasn’t necessary.”

Nathan squeezes her hand, grinning a little stupidly because Haley clearly, at least, likes it. “I know. But I thought it would be something nice to do and well. I haven’t exactly gone on a real date in a while. Ever, really.” He nods at the maitre d. “Reservation for Scott, please.”

You don’t get to pick tables on the phone, but it feels like a deity somewhere is smiling because the two of them end up with a really nice table. Close enough to the water to be able to enjoy the reflection of the lights on the shining blackness and hear the waves, but far enough away to be able to focus on the smell of the food and not the water. Haley settles across from him, prim and classy with a smooth to her skirts, and Nathan doesn’t understand why she agreed to go out with him.

_Especially_ because considering what he’s learned (and seen) of Brooke Davis, there’s no way she doesn’t know. About his father. About what he did. ( _Tried_ , to do.)

“Haley, can I ask you something?” He pulls at the neck of his button down his pointer finger, and Nathan doesn’t want to ask, not really, but he can’t not. It’s been killing him, not knowing what was going through that head of hers.

They’ve ordered, but Haley asked if she could keep the menu to look at dessert options ahead of time. At his question the top of her menu lowers and he can see the top half of her head again, long golden eyelashes and an interrupted hum. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Nathan clears his throat. It’s at times like this that he wishes it could read minds, or something X-Man-y enough to help him out here. “You read about - about my dad, right? Most people in town knew, but you didn’t when we met. At least I don’t think so.”

The menu Haley’s holding gets folded back down and she picks at a piece of lint on the table that Nathan can’t see. He’s staring at her anxiously, and the simple fact that she’s here with him should tell him that everything is probably going to be okay with them, but that doesn’t mean jackshit until she says something.

“Okay, so here’s the deal, Nathan Scott.” Haley takes one of his large hands in both of hers and he feels sort of like she’s looking right through his soul. For someone so small, who he’s only known for a couple of weeks, Nathan has started to feel like she sees him for who he really is, and the thought of it is terrifying, like the plunge of a roller coaster in the dark. He had absolutely no clue where he was going, just along for the ride. “Your dad, is a bad man. A really, _bad_ man whose only goal in life, it seems, was to make the people around him miserable and rob them of their happiness. Something went very, very sour with him, yes, but I don’t see the point of holding his asinine decisions against you.”

Nathan felt a little stunned. That was fiercer than he would’ve expected from sweet little Haley James, and he could tell that she meant every word. Hesitantly, the corner of his lips turns up in a small smile. “Asinine?”

“Yes, well.” She huffs, a little flustered and entirely cute. “But. Don’t worry. I don’t see your dad when I look at you.” Haley smiles, rosy cheeked, and lets go of him, touching her own shoulder nervously. “I just see you.”

White noise fills his ears for a few minutes, because, is this actually happening? Or is Nathan having a _really_ vivid dream right now? He thinks that maybe, he understands how Clay felt when he started going out with Sara, and then remembers the engagement ring his friend had bought and shut down that line of thinking right there. 

_Stop overthinking._

“Haley James, I’m starting to think you like me a little bit.”

“Maybe. Just a little.” Haley wrinkles her nose at him, and Nathan can’t help but laugh. The waiter comes by, quicker than expected, and settles a starter in front of them both. Her mouth o’s as she ooo’s in appreciation. “Macaroni and cheese! Food of the gods.”

“I knew I liked you,” Nathan comments, and she kicks him gently under the table.

He doesn’t have a lot of experience, but it’s the best first date he’s ever had.

  
  


* * *

“So. Nathan and Haley.”

“Nathan and Haley.” Jake sagely nods from his side of the couch, leaning his elbow on the couch arm to prop up his head. Peytons sitting on it with him, her knees drawn up to her chest as she plays with the fringed edge of the blanket on the back of the couch.

It’s the first time they’ve been more or less alone in a private space, and there’s an anticipation hanging in the air between them, though it remained to be seen if it would light like a fuse or lose its momentum. Shyness wasn’t usually a trait that Jake exhibited, but Peyton was different. There was a shining flame in those gorgeous green eyes, flecked with gold and filled with trust in him, and he couldn’t bear the thought of compromising that. Of being less than she thought of him. The topic of their mutual friends is a safe place for two that weren’t quite sure if they could wave out of the shallows yet.

“Can’t say that I would have ever seen that happening.” Peyton’s eyes dart towards his, a little smile playing on her features. “Haley’s never been this into a guy, like... _ever_. And from what you told me about Nathan before I met him, he does _not_ seem like her type.”

Jake rubs an absent hand over his scruff, wishing he’d remembered to shave it sometime between getting Jenny ready for her playdate and rushing out the house to meet Peyton. “What’s her type?”

“I don’t know. From the way that she is, you’d think, more scholarly. A straightforward sense of humor. He’s just not what I pictured.” Peyton worries a hand through her hair, nibbling at the corner of her lips.

“The heart wants what it wants, I guess.” Jake watches as her legs stretch out more comfortably, knocking the tension in the room up to about a seven. They cross over his lap with forced nonchalance and he thrills a little on the inside. He can’t remember the Last time he met a beautiful girl who was this whip smart, this clearly too cool for him, and this definitely more jaded yet hopeful than him. Who also seemed to care a _lot_ about his daughter to boot, the golden ticket to Jake even without the other things. Peyton holds his attention to matter where they are, and the same is true for now - he is near mesmerized by her tight black tank top and ripped whitewashed jeans. 

She is green eyes and those romantic blonde brown curls, and he is thanking his lucky stars. “They seem happy. For a couple that’s only been together, really, for a few weeks now.”

The girl smiles almost as if lost in thought, and smooths down one of the thick knitted lines. “Yeah, they do.”

“What about you?” Their eyes lock, and Jake feels the tempo of his heart rising. 

“What about me?”

“What would you say your type is?”

Peyton takes a deep breath, warm and sure, and then leans slightly forward. “Thick, brown hair. A little bit of day old scruff, insides that he can’t hide are absolutely gushy, and single dads. I do love me a single dad, if this one is any indication for the rest of them.”

He can’t help himself. Jake reaches forward and loses one hand in those tempting curls, drinking in her little release of an exhale. “You want to know what my type is?”

“What is it?” Peyton whispers against his lips, wrapping her hands on the lapels on his shirt.

Jake had meant to say _girls named Peyton who look just like you_ but that gets whisked away in the first kiss that the two of them have. And then lost in the many that follow.

  
  


* * *

“Oh wow.” Haley holds tight to Nathan’s hand, warm and strong around her smaller one and looks with intense curiosity at his place. It’s the first time she’s been to see it, in the three weeks since they’ve been talking, and even though it’s slightly killing her inside they don’t have a label yet. Other than _seeing each other_ , that is. 

When he offhandedly described a townhouse, she wasn’t expecting one freaking on the damn beach. It was lofty, with huge windows and light blue walls. There were still a lot of touches that told you boys lived there - the extensive amount of gaming systems, the bench press on the patio that you could see through the windows, dirty dishes and a pile of shoes by the front door. The excellent baker and cook in Haley falls in love with the oak dark tiled kitchen, and she knows with great sorrow that it probably goes very unappreciated.

“Yeah, it’s home.” Nathan looks at her suddenly, a ruddy blush flirting with his arched cheekbones. “I know I’m lucky, don’t get me wrong.” He doesn’t seem sure what to say afterwards, so he falls silent. 

“Hey. I like it.” She smiles at him, a little sparkle entering her brown eyes. “Give me the tour?” Haley pays attention to every room, making the appropriate noises and teasing him at different times. When they climb the steps, heading to his bedroom, her heart rate quickens. 

The only boys rooms she’d been in had been platonic friends, and this was another planets worth of territory, being Nathan’s room. (Haley wondered what he thought about in there. Felt warm to think that it sometimes might be her.)There are posters of rappers she's only barely heard of on the walls and t-shirts on the floor that he hastily cleans. The room is filled tons of little touches that show his passions, including the basketball hoop on the back of the closet and the sports encyclopedia clearly worn with time. The laptop on his desk looks brand spanking new, and she gets a pang when she thinks of how in need of an update her own is. 

When Nathan kisses her, soft and driven next to her on his bed, Haley doesn’t fight it, because she had no will to. It had not taken her long to realize that Nathan Scott’s lips on hers made her brain melt and parts of her wake up and get involved that hadn’t before, but she was going to say something. Wasn’t she?

Yes, she was, because Haley knows the implications of her, and bed, and what comes after kissing on it, and she needs to say something. Needs to get it out. “Okay I need to -” she pushes gently on his chest, trying to calm down her heart rate. “Just, hear me out for a second.” Haley takes a deep breath and looks deep into his eyes, willing him to hear her. “Nathan, I love kissing you. I’m definitely down to make out with you, and maybe, if you’re lucky, some other things, but I’m not ready to have sex.” _I haven’t yet_ Haley thinks a little but it’s offhanded and completely secondary as she waits for Nathan’s reaction.

There is a serious tone in those too clear eyes, the same shade as the North Carolina surf, and her breath catches in her throat when he brushes his thumb down her cheek until it’s just under the curve of her chin. He is inky, thick black hair, that incredible physique and that straight statement nose, and Nate’s _smiling_ at her. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” Nathan presses a little at her chin so it turns to him, pressing his lips to hers for two seconds that turn her insides to putty. “This can go at whatever speed you need it to. I just want to be with you, at the end of the day. You can slam on the brakes whenever you want to, just say the word.”

Haley can’t stop her lips from turning up into a smile, because how on earth had she found herself a man like this? When it came to affairs of the heart, she’d never really known what had kept her so reserved, almost as if she was waiting for something - maybe Haley had actually been waiting for someone. A person who she had no control over her feelings for, just being with him and talking to him sending her tumbling headfirst.

“Besides, despite what a lot of asswads think, blue balls isn’t a medical condition. Just don’t be mad at me when I think about you later to relieve the tension,” Nathan adds, cheeky and honest. 

Haley blushes and slaps at his knee but there’s zero energy behind it. “Nathan!”

“Haley,” he says her name teasingly back, and then he’s back to his singular mission with his lips on hers and Haley nearly forgets what they were talking about. Sinking into Nathan’s kisses was about the easiest thing she had ever done, and she can never help herself from getting lost in it. Her arms go around his neck and she leans forward, nearly on her knees with his hand on the too thin fabric of her white tank top. Nathan’s touch burns, nearly branding, and it sets her skin on fire just as well.

Nathan swallows her soft moan, loose and uncontrolled, and Haley can feel his grip tighten. She needs to be closer. (She is not nearly close enough.) Her knee nudges against his own, a cramp threatening to develop at the base of her back from their position, and Nathan’s touch slips to her hips and tugs. “You can sit on my lap, Hales. If that’s okay with you.” He murmurs, punctuated with a tip nip at her bottom lip, and her head is absolutely spinning

Haley definitely wants this. Playing with fire maybe wasn’t the smartest thing, considering that she’d just told him she wanted to take things slow, but Nathan was _hot_ and _skilled_ and she’d do a lot of things for him to just keep kissing her like that. Instead of answering with her words, not able to trust what might fall out of her mouth and unwilling to pull back anyways, she shifted her legs closer and one over.

Haley Bob James settles herself on a boys lap for the first time in her whole life, and her whole bottom half feels like it’s on freaking fire. Her jeans skirt is biting into the skin of her upper thighs from where it stopped riding up to accommodate the new position, and Nathan’s chest rumbles under her fingers. She’s never felt a man groan before, against her mouth or on her fingertips and she breaks the kiss for a moment, blinking at him. “What was that for?”

“Haley, if you ask me why I make every sound I’m going to end up making when I’m alone with you, we’re not going to get anywhere.” Nathan explains, more gravelly than usual, pupils blown bigger than she’d ever seen them. “But this particular case…” There’s a caress of his touch and she sucks in a breath because, when had it snuck below her top of her skirt? His thumb runs an inquisitive sweep under the side of her underwear, thin lace that Haley knows is canary yellow, and she fancies herself to think that it’s not her trembling, but him. “This isn’t good girl underwear, Haley James.”

Haley rests her forehead against his and smiles, private and pleased despite the madness happening in her body right now. A tumultuous hurricane inspired by the boy with misplaced guilt and a good heart that she now could see from a mile away. “You don’t know everything about me by a long shot, Nathan Scott.”

Nate’s eyebrow goes up and she has to stifle a giggle. 

(He spends the next couple of hours trying to learn more.)

Somehow, they end up taking a nap together, and she thanks her lucky stars that her class tomorrow was cancelled due to a teachers research trip and she could fully relax into being with Nathan. Early night sends pale, navy tinted light through the slats of his blinds, and Haley doesn’t want to wake up but she is just so freaking thirsty that she surrenders to her need. His arm tightens around her, heavy, muscled and insistent, and Nathan’s voice feels different when it’s mumbled beneath the curve of her ear. “Where’re ya goin’?”

“To get some water, mister. Calm down.”

“Mmm.” Nathan hums in his throat and kisses the back of her neck. “Don’t be long.”

“I won’t.” Haley brings their joined hands to her mouth before slipping out of bed, feeling naked in only her thin tank top and underwear. They’d done a lot of touching, and kissing, and exploring, but neither set of hands had venture below any undergarments barring his endless fascination about, okay she could admit it without blushing too hard, her almost-nearly-okay-it-basically-was, thong. Curling into him, her chin beneath his head and his arms wrapped tight around her, Haley had felt safe. Cared for. 

She wouldn’t let herself on how natural and right it had felt.

A grey t shirt is the first thing Haley sees, so she pulls it on over the camisole and creeps out of the bedroom, feeling like she was trespassing but left with no choice. True to boyhood form, there are two neat lines of water bottles on the top shelf of the fridge, saving her from having to hunt around for a cup. She’s two gulps in before a deep voice comes out of nowhere and literally makes her squeak.

“Hey there.” 

Haley swallows a mouthful that suddenly burns from going down the wrong pipe and evaluates the newcomer. A shock of thick blonde hair, sleepy blue eyes, and a stocky build. “It’s nice to know you exist.” He comments, infinitely amused and a shade or two higher than Nathan’s, and she just looks at him. Because who hell is this. 

She tugs at the bottom of Nathan’s shirt, but it doesn’t miraculously grow longer and cover more of her bare legs. “Excuse me?”

“I’m going to assume that you’re Haley.” He tosses his keys from one hand to the other, grinning boyishly at her. “Because that’s the only girl Nate’s talked about in almost a month, and I was told to make myself very, very scarce today. Which, for the record, I did do until I realized that I’d left my laptop here, so I get at least half the points. But only half.”

Haley puts two and two together, and realizes this must be Clay. One of Nathan’s over best friends, and his roommate. “Are you Clay?”

“The one and only. But hey, good for you!” He flashes two thumbs up at her with almost the same wattage of his smile, and Haley still finds herself dumbfounded. “Most girls barely get to spend an hour in his bed. Much less the real estate you’ve got stake out in his head. None of the others are doing it like you.”

“Doing it like -”

“Well not _doing it,_ doing it because if I know my buddy your legs wouldn’t be strong enough to take you to our kitchen and take a water bottle.” Clay winks. “Either way. Pat yourself on the back, and uh. If Nate asks, I was never here.” He salutes her and disappears into the dark foyer, the sound of the front door opening and closing echoing behind him, and Haley feels frozen.

The others?

How many others were there, exactly? Had there been. Would there be.

(Was she not as special to him as she felt?)

She’s got a stranglehold on the water bottle, and she knows that her mind is going a mile a minute faster than it should, but Haley’s never had the best check on the worst of her anxiety, especially not when her heart was involved. She doesn’t know how to compare to those girls. She doesn’t know if she _is_ those girls, nameless faces that danced in her head and bragged out the sex they’d already had with Nathan and how she was just as numberless as them. Her heartbeat is in her ears, and suddenly she’s questioning everything even as she desperately clings to the tranquility she’d felt not ten minutes before.

Haley feels dizzy, in his kitchen, rudderless and unsure, and it’s all over her face. It’s so blatant that when Nathan emerges a few minutes later, his hair flat on one side and rubbing at his eyes, that glorious chest on full display, he reads it on her face. 

“What’s wrong, Hales?” He asks, earnest and concerned, and she doesn’t know what to tell him. But she better come up with something fast, preferably before that black hole in her gut takes her down with it.


End file.
